Muslims are now demanding that the Spanish government grant automatic
citizenship to millions of descendants of Muslims who were expelled
from Spain in the seventeenth century.

Much of the Iberian Peninsula was occupied by Muslim conquerors known
as the Moors from 711 until 1492, when the Moorish Kingdom of Granada
surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella. But the final Muslim expulsion
from Granada, known in Arabic as Al-Andalus, did not take place until
over a century later, beginning in 1609, when King Philip III decreed
the Expulsion of the Moriscos.
The Moriscos were the descendants of the Muslim population that
converted to Roman Catholicism under threat of exile from Ferdinand and
Isabella in 1502. From 1609 through 1614, the Spanish government
systematically forced an estimated 350,000 Moriscos to leave Spain for
Muslim North Africa.

Today there are an estimated 5 million descendants of the Moriscos
living in Morocco alone; there are millions more living in Algeria,
Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Tunisia and Turkey.

In a December 3 essay published by the Morocco-based newspaper Correo Diplomático,
the Moroccan journalist Ahmed Bensalh Es-salhi wrote that the "decision
to grant Spanish citizenship to the grandchildren of the Hebrews in
Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while ignoring the
Moriscos, the grandsons of the Muslims, is without doubt, flagrant
segregation and unquestionable discrimination, as both communities
suffered equally in Spain at that time. The decision could also be
considered by the international community to be an historic act of
absolute immorality and injustice…This decision is absolutely
disgraceful and dishonorable."

Bensalh then went on to threaten Spain: "Is Spain aware of what might
be assumed when it makes peace with some and not with others? Is Spain
aware of what this decision could cost? Has Spain considered that it
could jeopardize the massive investments that Muslims have made on its
territory? Does Spain have alternatives to the foreign investment from
Muslims if they ever decide to move that capital to other destinations
due to the discrimination against Muslims?"

Bensalh's article is the latest salvo in an escalating battle being
waged by Muslim historians and academics who are demanding that Spain
treat Moriscos the same way it treats Sephardic Jews.
Jamal Bin Ammar al-Ahmar, an "Andalus-Algerian" university professor
at the Ferhat Abbas University in Sétif in northeastern Algeria, has
been engaged in a four-year campaign to persuade Spanish King Juan
Carlos to identify and condemn those who expelled the Muslims from
Al-Andalus in the fifteenth century. Al-Ahmar is also demanding that
millions of Moriscos expelled from Spain be allowed to return there.

In a letter addressed to Juan Carlos,
Al-Ahmar calls for a "full legal and historical investigation of the
war crimes that were perpetrated on the Muslim population of Andalusia
by the French, English, European and papal crusaders, whose victims were
our poor miserable people, after the collapse of Islamic rule in
Andalusia."

The letter speaks of "the injustice inflicted on the Muslim
population of Andalusia who are still suffering in the diaspora in exile
since 1492."

Al-Ahmar wants the Spanish monarch to apologize "on behalf of his
ancestors" and to assume "responsibility for the consequences" that this
would entail. He says it is necessary "to identify criminals, to
convict retroactively, while at the same time to identify and compensate
victims for their calamities and restore their titles." This process
would culminate with "a decree that allows immigrants to return to their
homes in Andalusia, and grant them full citizenship rights and
restoration of all their properties."

9 comments:

Unlike the Sephardic Jews who predated Christianity and did not come as invaders, the muslims are not owed or entitled to anything especially since most after their explusion typically joined the Barbary pirates and continued to practice enslaving non-muslims even as far as the British Isles and Iceland.

Slight OT - I cannot help but wonder if the Spanish hope by giving automatic automatic citizenship to millions of descendants of Sephardic Jews, that the returning Jews will somehow fix Spain's broken economy and reverse its steady decline from its peak when it used to be a global power under the Spanish Empire.

I don't know if this is of any import in this context but there are to this day, two distinct traditions/rites among Moroccan Jews: the Megurashim are identified by the Castillan rite (mentioned on the marriage ketouba and invoked for inheritance rulings) and the Toshavim follow what is called the mosaic law (though both are mosaic law).

According to a book by Dr. Ahmed Sefrioui on the personal status of the Moroccan, generally speaking, the Castillan rite has been followed in the North from ElJadida to Spain, while those following the rites of the Toshavim were generally in the South : Safi, Essaouira, Marrakech, Tarudant.

In other words, while there are ways to help identify descendents of Jews expelled from Spain, there is nothing that can help identify Spanish ancestry among Muslims as a group, except individual documents to prove it since they all practice the same Maliki rite.

When returning to North Africa , in full decline of Islam, the Moriscos were never fully accepted and integrated in the Muslim world . They were mixing Judaism, Christianity and Islam together, they were seen as traitors . In Tunisia , Testour , there is a mosque with 2 Magen David , I believe they also build Sidi Bousaid in Tunis. A few years ago , a Qoran with a Magen David was banned from Algeria, it was a from the Moriscos.

I believe that what we call the Magen David [shield of David] was not exclusively a Jewish symbol historically, although carved on ancient Jewish structures in Israel. I once had a Moroccan coin with a Magen David on it. Of course, today, when the Muslims are more fanatically anti-Jewish than ever --also encouraged in this by the West-- any symbol at all considered Jewish by them would be rejected.

In line with Muslim fanaticism, the Taliban in Pakistan now oppose polio vaccine injections --going so far as to murder some volunteers giving polio shots-- on two main grounds, 1) the Pakistani physician who tipped off the Americans about Bin Laden's location in Pakistan was working in the polio vaccination field; & 2) the inventor of the vaccine was a Jewish doctor [actually two doctors, Salk & Sabin], therefore the vaccine was meant to hurt Muslims. This second claim I heard on France24 [as I recall] from a Paki imam. He argued that if a Jewish doctor invented it, then it had to be meant to harm Muslims.

The predictable result is that in Pakistan, the rate of polio infection and death has risen significantly in the last couple of years.

I am Atheist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim who fully Submitted to the Almighty Creator of All, and let face it, We all came from the same source, but the truth must be told, and it must be accepted by everyone on this planet; The Moorish Ruled in peace for more then 700 Years, and contributed more then any other society to humanity; Therefore; The Moorish descendent including Sephardics Jews deserves to claim their rights back fully in Europe, and the Maghreb (Morocco). Spain should never return Sebta (Seuta) to anyone, and the UK should never return Gibraltar to anyone; Both Spain, England and Portugal should create new nation called the Moorish Nation with coast to coast boundaries from Malaga on the Mediterranean with strait lane to the Atlantic Ocean on the Portuguese side including the Northern part of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya....

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)